


Burden of Proof

by Vault_of_Glass



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: F/M, Fingering, Oral Sex, Pre-war shenanigans, synth angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2016-05-08
Packaged: 2018-06-07 05:52:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6788377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vault_of_Glass/pseuds/Vault_of_Glass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A man never forgets a beautiful dame.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burden of Proof

**Author's Note:**

> A fill for the kinkmeme, and my first attempt at the synth detective.

Nick Valentine knows many truths after all his many years, first human, then synthetic. Some of these truths are happy, though most of them aren't, and that's only because he's a realist more than anything. He likes to think the majority of them are practical, useful truths, something he could collectively call wisdom, even. But there's one truth in particular that plagues him the day he's set free from his destination vacation in Vault 114 with Skinny Malone's goons.

A man never forgets a beautiful dame.

Funny how some truths change, and others really, really don't.

Because the second the woman steps into the office that serves as his cell, he's overcome with memories, heated, organic memories - _not mine, but his_ \- of the very woman before him, no matter how impossible it seems. Jet black hair tied up into an officious bun, cat-eye glasses perched on the thin, lovely bridge of her nose, so soft and delightful in the hard, gray lines of a courtroom.

The curiosity he inherited from his namesake is a blessing, a curse (a tangle of circuits and programming.) But now is not the time to unravel this mystery, as satisfyingly puzzling as it is, so he stows his questions away for later and leads the ghost of Valentine past to safety.

* * *

As time goes on, as they grow accustomed to each other as traveling partners, he begins to piece the whole picture together. She spared him quite the panic when she told him she'd been frozen. The memories are both too likely then and far too compelling not to be true, coming back to him now with increasing frequency the more time they spend together. He can remember the way her skin glowed in the dim lighting of the bar they met at after the trial had all been settled - though he can't remember if it were coincidence, or if he had taken the leap and asked her out. The wrap of her voice around her laughter. Her curves in that dress and the pale, tempting skin of her shoulders, soft and lovely. It's not often the original Nick's memories stand out as starkly as his own, and it sure doesn't make it any easier to meet her eye. But with the curiosity also came Nick's bad luck, so it's not altogether surprising.

He knows, for his own sanity, that he'll have to bring it up eventually. She's never made any indication that she remembers him at all, but he can't go on forever without knowing. He bides his time, imagines himself slipping in an innocent question about her past, dropping hints that he may have seen her before, trying to scrape together some joke that might surprise a secret out of her, but the fantasies never manifest. For a detective, he's doing a lousy job of detecting, even if this one's delicate, personal, a beautiful, dark-haired puzzle whose smile sets off echoes in his sensors.

It's easier, for a long time, to just be Nick Valentine the Diamond City Detective, rather than Nick Valentine the synth representation of some cop you had a steamy night with two centuries ago.

"Ready to go, Nick?" She gives him that smile, the one that makes him glad he's made of metal, because it would've stopped the original Nick's heart right in his chest - almost did, if he remembers correctly the first time he saw her, all long legs and black heels and that face that made the old Nick wish he was a painter, or a writer, or a photographer so he could somehow capture her beauty.

"Right behind you, sweetheart."

The term of endearment draws a laugh from her, all smoke and silk, just like he likes. She's such an anachronism, rays of sunshine in this broken world, and he thinks for one crazy moment that she might be able to help sew it all back together somehow. It wouldn't be the first time she tested fate.

_Tomorrow. Tomorrow's the day._

It's nice to have something to look forward to again, something of his own . . . well, sort of.

* * *

Nick watches the storm advance across what little sky he can see from their shelter for the night - a dingy office building deep in the heart of Boston's ruins. Dark clouds curl out over the stars, tinted green as if through stained glass. Thunder chases each strike of lightning, rumbles deep like a growl amid the sheets of pouring rain.

The nights are hardest, when she sleeps and he doesn't - can't. Tough to remember what dreams are like, he's had these old wires and circuits so long. He remembers them to be peaceful, though, weightless and easy, well worth the occasional nightmare, though the old Nick had more of those than normal people do. His line of work, it was to be expected. Nowadays it's just a part of wasteland life.

He drifts through memories of varying clarity, some ancient, some recent, all of them her, her, her. His newer memories of her are crystal clear, imprinted into the steel of his mind, but the older ones are arguably more fun, worth wading through the static and the haze of imperfect human recollection.

The night was stormy, much like this one, dark and gloomy like an old noir film.

_The rain is barely audible over the jazz band warming up in the hotel lounge. He lights another cigarette, drops the matchbox on the bar next to his whiskey. If she hadn't invited him, he never would have come. But knowing she wants to see him (combined with a little liquid courage) is enough to steady his nerves._

_After all, it's not just any dame he's waiting for._

_She's sin on two legs, sharp tongue, sharper wit, and watching her argue and reason an entire courtroom into her hands had been like a tantalizing, year-long foreplay. She's a dwarf star, and for good or worse, he wants to get sucked up into her gravity._

_The sound of high heels on tile breaks through his reverie and he looks up to see her sauntering toward him. Her dress is gray, strapless, shimmers in the dim lighting as she moves beneath it. The jet black hair she normally tames into a bun falls in luscious waves down over her bare shoulders. Her smile steals the breath from his lungs, but that, at least, he had grown accustomed to. Gone is the woman he met in the courtroom, cold determination in the steel of her gaze. The spectacles have also disappeared, and it's almost unnerving not to have anything between her eyes and his. "Glad you could make it, Detective Valentine."_

_He clears his throat, tries to maintain his composure. Hard around a gal like her. "Trial's over, Ms. Lacey. It's . . . just Nick, to you."_

_That devious smile, painted a red that haunts his dreams for weeks. "I suppose it is, isn't it?" The bartender slides her a glass of water before she even needs to ask for it. He wonders how often she comes here as she presses her lips to the glass and takes a sip._

_"I hope you can forgive all the mystery, Nick."_

_Now it's his turn to smile. He hopes it's half as charming as hers, knows it definitely isn't, but damn if she doesn't smile wider back at him. "I like mystery."_

_The silk of her laughter follows, a sound he could get lost in forever. "You asked me earlier how I relax after such a heavy case."_

_He remembers suddenly the cigarette burning down to the filter in his fingers, taps the ash that's built up in his negligence._

_Nora covers his hand with her own, fingers stroking his knuckles as she takes the cigarette from him. "I figured it'd be easier to show you." She puts the cigarette to her lips, takes a long, slow drag. When she hands it back to him, her lipstick is on the filter. It isn't until she gets up and takes her place behind the microphone that he realizes she's tonight's entertainment. And from the look on all the faces around him, the full house is on account of her._

Nora stirs, pulling him instantly from the faded memory. The storm clouds still churn ominously outside. He crosses the room to search through her bag for another blanket. The office windows had been blown out god knows how long ago, and he doesn't have to be human to feel the chill that rolls in. He tucks the extra blanket in around her sleeping bag. Then, as an afterthought, before he can stop himself, he brushes a stray lock of black hair behind her ear.

_Nora was born for the stage, he can see it in the curve of her smile as she starts to sing, her hips drifting like ocean waves to the lazy bass-line. Her eyes find his, blue gunmetal irises, and when he realizes what song she's singing it breaks his heart in two._

_My funny Valentine_  
_Sweet comic Valentine_  
_You make me smile with my heart_

_Your looks are laughable_  
_Un-photographable_  
_Yet you're my favorite work of art_

"Nick?"

_He listens to her whole set, until his whiskey's all but gone and his cigarette's burned down to the filter. She sings sultry, she sings sweet, she sings a song that weaves its way into the fabric of his being._

"Nick."

  _But don't change a hair for me_  
_Not if you care for me  
Stay little Valentine, stay_

_Her voice drags the word out, eyes pinning him to his seat._

  _Each day is Valentine's Day_

"Nick, are you okay?"

Reality returns with all the force and velocity of a bullet train. The bar around him disappears, her voice fading back to wherever it is that memories go when they're not haunting you. It's a jarring experience, one he's grown accustomed to over the decades. His eyes focus in on Nora's face, lined with concern through the darkness. Seems like she's been trying to get his attention for a while, but she's reluctant to leave the warmth of her bed.

Nick realizes the cigarette in his hand is nothing but ash and filter, drops it absently into the ashtray on the windowsill. "Everything okay, doll?"

"I was just about to ask you the same thing." A little color returns to her face in her relief, and she gropes through the darkness for her glasses.

"To your left," he guides her, "by the oversized calculator."

"Ha-ha." She finds them next to her Pip-Boy and slides them onto her nose, squinting to make him out through the darkness of an early morning. "Thought I'd lost you there for a second."

"I appreciate the concern, but there's still some life left in these old circuits."

Nora frowns, like she always does when he self-deprecates, but old habits die hard, especially ones that aren't his. Well, they're his and they aren't, and isn't that the thorn that's been in his side since the day he woke up as Institute trash?

"Days like this, I really miss coffee."

He chuckles. Different memories this time, much harder to recall, dark, warm bitterness; he remembers the aroma more than the taste of the drink itself. "Slocum's Joe?"

She exaggerates a shudder. "God, no. Corporate swill. There was this little cafe a few blocks from the courthouse. It was pretentious and overpriced, but you couldn't find a better cup of coffee in all of Boston."

Nick can remember the place she's talking about. Never went inside - it _had_ looked pretentious - but recalls passing it every day in his car. Wonders how many times she'd been inside, sipping a drink. "How'd you take yours?"

"When I was in law school, black, two sugars. But once I started working, that didn't do it for me anymore, so I moved onto lattes. One latte from that cafe could keep me up all night. I won a lot of cases thanks to them."

They're straying into unfamiliar territory now, memories they've only touched once or twice in conversation before letting the topic die between them. It's been established as common knowledge - she was a lawyer, he was a detective - but neither of them have ever verbally connected the dots - she's _that_ lawyer, he's _that_ detective, she's the one he pushed up against that bathroom wall, her soft hair in his hands, her fingers pulling at his tie.

Nora wraps her arms around her knees, back against the wall. There isn't much space between them - it's a pretty small office, was likely some underpaid administrative drone's back in the day. It's not the first time they've had to share a sleeping space. He wonders if it makes it better or worse that he doesn't sleep. Probably worse.

She doesn't seem disturbed taking a stroll down memory lane at least, seems to enjoy it, even, if the nostalgic smile on her face is any indication.

"Can I . . . bring something up?"

Her smile turns devious. "Are all synths this bashful, or do you have to pay extra for that?"

"No, it's just me," he assures her dryly.

She laughs. Wraps her voice around his name. " _Nick_. Tell me what's on your mind."

He steels himself with a deep breath that he doesn't really need, but the action is comforting. "For the longest time, I've been getting these . . . flashes. Memories of places I've never been. Things I've never seen. Memories of Nick's. They're not bad, they're just . . . they're just this inescapable reminder. That I'm not the person I think I am. That I'm not a person at all. I'm just a machine, pretending to be human."

"Nick -," she starts in, but if he doesn't finish now, he might never, so he presses on.

"I know I got it good, but . . . my entire life I owe to Nick. Everything that makes me who I am - my judgment, my speech, hell, even my name - they're his. All I want is a life where I have something I can call my own."

Nora stares back at him, mulling over his words for a long moment. Her eyes linger on his hand - the one that's all skeleton and circuits - as he pulls a cigarette from the pack on the windowsill. He lights it with a match - she says he's old-fashioned - and her eyes are fascinated with the burning flame until he waves it out and they shift from the curling smoke back to his.

Then she leans forward, dusts off a bit of ash where it landed on his knee. The smile crawls slow as a sunrise over her face, and she's so close he can almost see his reflection in the dark orbs of her pupils. "You haven't changed a bit, Nick."

"Well, I - what now?"

Nora watches his face with practiced caution, chancing a smirk. She's every bit as sweet and sensual as he remembers. He wonders what she remembers about him. "I mean, besides the metal parts," she remarks almost as an afterthought. "But I kind of like those, too."

"You remember, then."

"Oh, yes." Her eyes are like embers as she says it again, "Oh, yes. How could I ever forget a night like that?"

Nick manages out a strangled chuckle, tries to maintain his composure. "I wondered."

"I know." Her smile quirks up at one end, like she knows she's trouble and she's sorry for it, but she won't change - and he doesn't want her to. "It was your voice . . . the moment I heard you speak." She sighs, and it doesn't take a human ear to detect the longing in the sound. "We have a good thing going here. I didn't want to complicate anything that didn't need to be." She shrugs, a roll of thin, bare shoulders. One strap of her tank top slides down her arm, unnoticed, and he feels something like a spark deep in his chest cavity.

"Nora. . . ."

She bites her lip, an unusual gesture of uncertainty. Still looks good on her, though, like most things. Fills him with the urge to comfort her, and he's not sure if it's really his or just another ghost emotion. "I've thought about it, though," she whispers. "Every time you look at me." Her eyes drift, seemingly over their own accord, to his, and her face glows in the light of his gaze.

Nick can't find the words he needs, so he fills the space with questions. "How much do you remember?"

"Everything."

"So . . ."

"Starting with the first article in the _Bugle_ about the murder and ending with when you never called."

Nick winces. "Good memory. Better than mine, that's for sure."

"Well, yours have been through the wringer a little bit." She smiles forgivingly, running a hand through her messy hair. His eyes follow her pale fingers as they sift through the dark tresses. "I feel like a different person, too. Same body, but . . . would Dev even recognize me, if he could see me again?"

"I did."

Nora lets out a sudden breath, as if his words have knocked the wind out of her. She shifts forward onto her knees, the sleeping bag falling from around her thighs and he realizes she's wearing a tank top, underwear and nothing else at all. She reaches up and steals the cigarette from between two of his skeletal fingers. The cherry burns, sets off an echo of the last time she did this, makes the circuits that compose his nervous system fire off erratically. She might actually become his eventual undoing, the end of Nick Valentine for good. He hopes he can at least help her find Shaun first. Afterward, though . . . it might be a hell of a way to go.

Nora's skin is soft like moonlit silk - he remembers just how soft - and he barely resists the temptation to give his hands a chance to remember, too. She inhales the smoke from his cigarette, lets it seep out from between her lips like a ghost. He wants to kiss her, swallow it down and taste a tiny piece of that magic he remembers.

Finally she leans forward, holding the cigarette toward him filter-out. Her eyes are half-lidded but bright, and he parts his lips for her before she needs to ask. She slides the filter between them and smiles in approval when his mouth closes around it.

"You have plenty of things for yourself, Nick," she murmurs, nearly losing him as she picks up the end of his frustrated rant. She's on her knees, leaning heavily on one of his legs, and he's not sure how much more he can take of this before something has to happen - he's still not sure what, but the thought stirs some electric heat deep in his metal bones. He knows what he _wants_ to happen - can remember it in faded colors - hasn't done something like that in centuries, and Nora's not exactly the type of woman you want to disappoint.

"You have me," she says simply.

A chuckle makes it out despite his efforts not to laugh. "You're his, too, doll, don't you see? Well, not his in that way. The lousy good-for-nothing couldn't even call you, but you know what I mean."

The end of her mouth twists up. She rests her head against his knee, hands curling around his calf, and if she notices the hard ridge of exposed metal in his damaged leg, she doesn't mind it. "The first memories, maybe. We'll let old Nick have those. But every moment since I found you in that vault I've been yours."

"Nora." She's being awfully comfortable with him, so he chances running his fingers through her hair. She leans her head into the blunt metallic points, sighs in relief when they slide over her scalp. "He barely deserved to have you in the first place. And I . . . I definitely don't."

She sits up, hands planted on his thighs, and the sensors in his skin can pick up the heat of her palms through his trousers. "The world isn't about who deserves what anymore."

"It was hardly ever about that to begin with," he reasons, but she's close and moving closer, plucking the cigarette back out of his mouth, and then she kisses him.

Strange, not quite how he remembers it now that he's made of metal, but her lips are soft, warm, gentle despite how very not gently his body responds to her kiss. He presses his good hand to the side of her face, feels the delicate skin and bones underneath. Her lips part, tongue lashing out to scrape along his bottom lip, and it sends a jolt through his whole body. The sensation sparks off memories of the same. The physical pleasure overlaps the sensory memories, starts a feedback loop that shorts him out, for the briefest moment, in a haze of static pleasure.

Nora presses her lips to the cool metal skin beside his mouth and pulls away. "Nick? You okay?"

His hand tangles in her hair, holding her still so he can claim her mouth again. Her eyes slide closed and she moans softly into his mouth. It's almost instinctive, pulling her onto his lap, feeling her hips settle against his. Her fingers slide under his coat, trying to push it back over his shoulders.

"Nora, sweetheart," he growls, closing his hand around one of hers. "I don't exactly look the same as I used to. . ."

"Don't care," she whispers between kisses down his jaw. Her mouth is soft as velvet against his skin. She traces the fractured side of his neck, gentle and soft, as if trying not to hurt him. Then she drifts lower and sinks her teeth into his collarbone, making him jerk in surprise. Pressure, pleasure, pain - the torturous things she's doing to him threaten to overload his sensors. He bucks his hips up into hers, an ancient, human instinct, and she groans softly in response. "I just want to feel you."

Nick runs his good hand up her thigh, and he savors the shaky breath she exhales. Her skin is warm and soft; everywhere they touch burns like a strike of lightning. He dips his head and presses his mouth to her throat, feels it tremble beneath his lips as she moans. Everything he does draws another tempting sound from her sinful mouth.

Nora tips his hat back from his head with an impish smile. It's crazy that the apocalypse hasn't snuffed out that bright and roguish flame of hers. It shines in different ways now maybe - when she slices the head off a raider or sweet-talks them out of yet another crisis, instead of in the courtroom or jazz lounge. He supposes he's the only one lucky enough to have seen her there, too, and if he doesn't deserve the memories, he definitely doesn't deserve her arms draping around his shoulders or her lips, moving sweet and tender beneath his.

"Nick?" She catches his damaged hand and presses it to her face. The contrast of the metallic bones against her soft, warm, utterly human face sets off something like a flame inside of him, something dark and ancient and possessive. The golden orbs of his eyes reflect in her round, dark irises. "Will you touch me?" Her fingers lead his hand down her jaw to her throat, and her lips part as his blunt fingertips close around the column of her neck.

"It's a tragedy," he laments, flexing his hand against her skin experimentally and smiling when she sighs. "Such a beautiful dame hasn't been touched in so long she wants _my_ hands on her."

"Both of them," she adds with a smirk, and he places his good hand against her hip, where a thin strip of bare skin between her tank top and panties sears his palm. "I like your hands," she murmurs as she loosens the knot of his tie. When his fingers inch up beneath the fabric of her tank top, that mischievous smile lights up her face again. "I remember you being quite good with them."

"Beautiful women, like most things, require a . . . precise touch," he rumbles, his hand sliding up her tensing stomach to palm the swell of a breast. Her eyelids flutter closed when he catches her taut nipple between two fingers. White, perfect teeth bite down on her bottom lip, swollen from his affection. "Even clumsy ol' Nick knew that one."

She laughs then, unevenly, and the sound shifts into a moan when he strokes the stiff peak with the rough pad of his thumb. "Yeah," she breathes around another whispered groan, tilting her head back. "S-something like that."

Nick almost laughs, too, because he never thought he'd see the unfaltering, delectable Nora Lacey stutter her words. He rather likes the frayed sound of her voice when it breaks apart. He tests his teeth against the base of her throat, and she leans into the edge of his bite as he suspected she might. He remembers this, remembers her breathless, hurried instruction as he pushed her up onto the restroom counter.

_"Bite me," between his increasingly rough kisses that pull dark splotches under her pale, perfect skin, "Nick, please."_

He's stronger now, made of tougher materials, so he eases his teeth slowly into the flesh of her shoulder. Nora arches up against him, fingers curling desperately into his lapel, urging him closer. " _Yes_ ," she whimpers, her voice provoking that dark instinct to claim her, to bind himself somehow to this woman who is so deeply a part of him she may as well be etched into the metal of his bones. His good hand moves down her ribs, fingers skimming the dips between them. He pulls back to take in her face, flushed and glowing in the moonlight that streams in through the window frame. Her dark eyes narrow shrewdly. "It's not fair when you know all my secrets already."

"I'm a detective, sweetheart," he rasps, his mouth at her ear, and she shudders under the chill of his breath. "I would've figured it out anyways."

Nora giggles, rolling her hips against him with need. Her hands pull at his clothing with surprising efficiency, sliding through the buttons of his shirt and pushing it and his coat back over his shoulders. She leans up to kiss him again, uses the opportunity to rediscover his chest with her fingers, every break and seam, the thick, heavy feel of his skin.

"Sweetheart," he groans again, and her palms flatten against his chest, where his heart might be if he had one. Her skin feels like silk and heat as she sears pleasure like a brand across his body, the softest thing he can ever remember gracing his weathered, synthetic skin. He's never felt so raw or so alive. She's pure as prayer, sweet as sin, and he'll spend the rest of his days on his knees at her altar.

Nick is on his feet before he can think about it, lifting her gently by the hips, guiding her back toward an old, metal desk. He sweeps folders and a telephone to the floor and slides her up onto it, pushing his hips into the space between her thighs. Nora gasps, the sound muffled when he catches it between them in another devouring kiss. Her hands slide down the back of his neck to his shoulders and she wraps her legs around his waist, urging him as close as physically possible.

He presses one last tender kiss to her lips, so very mindful of how fragile she is compared to him. If he's going to indulge himself in her, he can't forget that she's human and delicate. They can't be so wild, so reckless as the last time. She shifts her hips beneath his touch, voicing low, appealing little sighs.

"Nick, please," she begs, guiding his hand between her curvy thighs, to the damp heat he can feel even through her underwear. "God, it's been so long. I feel like I've never been touched before."

"Lie back, sweetheart," he urges her, pulling her by the knees to the edge of the desk. She helps him slide her underwear down her hips and he leaves them hanging, forgotten, from her left ankle, already kneeling down to part her smooth thighs. "Let me take care of you."

Nora leans back on her elbows, watching Nick plant kisses down the slope of her thigh with dark, heavy-lidded eyes. He moves like a starving man, and in a way he probably is, after so long alone, with memories that aren't his, of a life he never lived. She doesn't want that for him, that loneliness and isolation. She doesn't belong in this world either, and in that way she feels inexorably drawn to him, an anchor, a foundation she can touch ground on so the world can right itself around her.

Nick presses his lips to her sensitive folds, already slick with arousal, and she sighs at the flame of a warm touch after feeling so cold for so long. His tongue moves gently at first, tenderly stroking the swollen bud that's been neglected for centuries.

"Nick!" she gasps, clenching her thighs around his head. She worries, fleetingly, that she's hurting him, then remembers his resilience, that he doesn't need to come up for air. He presses tighter to her, closing his mouth over her folds and she shudders under the suction - sharp pleasure that pulses like a current through her nerves. Her hips twitch and tremble, chasing and evading the overwhelming sensation at the same time.

He lifts his head, eyes bright in the darkness.

"It's good," she breathes, answering his unspoken question, the concern she's learned to read in the brilliance of his eyes. "Amazing."

He pulls her closer, hands firm around her thighs, sets back to working her with his mouth like he's been waiting for it for years now. She runs her fingers over the smooth surface of his head, legs draped over his shoulders, and his hands are so reverent on her body it feels more like being worshipped than eaten out.

While his tongue circles around her silky folds, two fingers of his good hand start to stroke against her. Her breath hitches when he gently eases first one finger into the tight sheath of her sex, then another. She pushes back against his hand, so he moves them with more purpose, crooking them inside of her.

" _Yes_ ," Nora moans, clutching at the back of his neck. "Nick, I'm - oh my god." Her thighs tense, hips shifting to chase the oncoming tendrils of release, licking at each of her nerves and reawakening sensations she hadn't experienced since her previous life. "I'm - yes - oh, oh!" She cries out, legs clamping tightly around his head as she comes. He can feel her clench and pulse around his fingers, so tight it's a struggle to stroke her through the waves of her climax. He laps and sucks at her until her hips grow still and she pulls away, shivering from the overstimulation.

If Nora Lacey is normally beautiful, she's an absolute treat after climax, skin flushed and warm, smiling up at him with that dazed pleasure in her eyes. "Nick," she sighs again, and he could really get used to hearing it. "Two hundred years later, and you can still make me sing."

"A songbird never loses her voice," he assures her, trailing his lips back up her body. "Just forgets how to sing every now and then." Nick's hand curls around the back of her neck, urging her into another languid kiss that still carries a trace of her arousal. His tongue is heavier, tougher than a human's, but just as insistent and hungry against hers. He coaxes her legs further apart and his fingers find the slickness pooling between her thighs. As his mouth plants stinging kisses down the curve of her throat and neck, his fingers slide back into her.

"Ah, god," Nora whimpers as she bucks into his touch. He twists his fingers deeper, in heavy pursuit of that lunacy that dances in the dark orbs of her eyes. She throws her head back, exposing more of that pale, perfect throat, littered with welts from his teeth. This is almost familiar, filling the space between her thighs, holding her up with a hand behind her back while he pleases her with the other. In the old Nick's memory, fuzzy and faded, he can see the bathroom mirror behind her back, reflecting the sharp blades of her shoulders, the zipper he'd left half undone, too anxious to have her in his arms.

In the present, Nora clings to him tightly, thin arms wrapped around his shoulders as she rides the insistent push of his fingers. Her lips press and nip at the lobe of his ear, each breath closer and closer to falling apart, threatening to tip over into a sob.

"Tell me how it feels, sweetheart," he urges her, watching her try to focus past the pleasure. "Tell much how much you love it."

"You're so good," she babbles, nearing incoherence. "Nick - _yes_. This is p-perfect. It's heaven."

Nick ducks his head against her shoulder, letting his fingers continue their relentless rhythm, driving deep into her tight heat. He doesn't have the same facilities as before, but it doesn't stop him from reading the pleasure that flashes like a masterpiece across her face, from savoring the lilting high notes and sighs that flutter out from between her parted lips. These are new sounds, ones he doesn't recognize from the old Nick's memories - just for him, and he drinks them up like the precious little treasures that they are.

Nora's fingers dance like velvet over the synthetic skin of his chest. Her nails trace down the slopes of his shoulders, making him shudder. Each reaction she draws out of him is quickly stored away somewhere in that sharp brain of hers for future consideration, when her head is clearer and his fingers aren't stroking her steadily toward another release. He dips his head to take the rosy peak of a nipple between his lips, tracing it with his tongue, groaning when she pushes her chest up against him.

"Oh, god, Nick, don't stop," Nora pleads, pressing clumsy kisses to the top of his head. "I need you."

"Forever," he promises gruffly. "'Til the whole damn world falls down around us."

Her lips twist up at one end and she tries for laughter, but the sound breaks off into another senseless groan when his thumb shifts up through her glistening folds to stroke the bead of her clit. She twitches at first, raw and sensitive after her orgasm. He eases her through it with feather-light touches, watching her face for every reaction, his synthetic nature allowing him a minute precision that can't be found in human men.

Sweat beads on her forehead, makes her dark hair cling heavily to her skin, and he can see her throat move when she swallows empty air. He likes compelling all of these little responses out of her body. Loving Nora - and how much longer can he deny that he loves her? - is otherworldly, sinful, or maybe righteous, it's been too long since he's had a heart to tell. But it's the closest he's felt to human in decades. This warm affection for her he knows is his and his alone, because the old Nick was half broken when he got swept up in the winds of Nora's hurricane; he didn't think he deserved a woman like her. But his successor is either wise enough or selfish enough to know better, and he won't deny himself or the woman he adores any longer.

Not when she feels so soft and so damn satisfying as she quivers beneath his ministrations. It's foolish, maybe, promising her forever, but he's never said a single word to Nora Lacey that he doesn't mean, and he has no intention of starting now.

" _Nick_!"

Rough and throaty or sultry sweet, every time she sings his name it's the best damn thing he's ever heard. And as she arches her body up towards him, the desk creaking ominously under their weight, it strikes him abruptly that their second of only two sexual encounters is in yet another less-than-romantic setting; the apocalypse doesn't exactly lend itself to romance, but his Nora, his siren deserves better.

Nora digs her heels into his back, the pressure growing as she nears orgasm again, bordering on pain, but he'll endure almost anything to allow this beautiful, strong woman a moment of release. It's a heavy pain she carries with her, that hangs on her thin shoulders. Despite his synthetic build, the man inside - equal parts circuits and memory - understands a thing or two about grief.

After another climax that seizes in her muscles and draws a gasping cry from her swollen lips, Nora grows limp on top of the desk. She smiles up at him when he stands, catching her breath. "You've outdone yourself," she says with a lazy grin, tracing the tip of her toes down his chest.

He can't help a dry chuckle. His hand catches her leg by the ankle, pressing his thumbs into the sole of her foot. He watches her expression soften in pleasure, a quieter relief, soothing after the frenzy of her rapid-fire orgasms. He drags his fingertips down her heaving ribs, eliciting another giggle. "One of these days, I owe you a little romance."

Nora laughs again, carefree and breathless in the wake of their intimacy. She straightens her glasses with shaky fingers, her cheeks flushed. "You think Giugino's still takes reservations?"

"Oh, I bet they probably have some openings." Nick drags his mouth up the slender curve of her ankle, lips curling into a smirk. "Heard the service has really suffered over the years, though."

"That's all right." She sits up slowly, closing her eyes in pleasure when he strokes her hair back over her ear. "I'm not really the same girl you saw sing in that lounge anyways."

"No, I suppose you're not." The kiss he presses to her temple draws an affectionate, satisfied sigh out of her. "It's lucky for me, really. That woman was danger on two feet. You woulda tore me to pieces."

She smiles then, wicked and sharp. "Well . . . some things don't change."

He helps her to her feet, swiping his shirt up from the floor to drape around her. The sleeves hang past her arms, brushing the shape of her elegant legs, hair falling loose around her shoulders.

Countless times, he's resented the synthetic nature of his mind and body. Today he finds a new reason to be grateful: capturing all the beautiful little pieces of her in perfect clarity, the jump of her pulse beneath his lips; that lilting, smoky voice, singing her pleasure; her clenching, tight heat around his fingers as she came undone.

Nora stands in a beam of silvery moonlight, legs pale against the shadows. She draws a few sips from her canteen and flashes him a smile over her shoulder. God, if he doesn't absolutely adore the look of her eyes behind those glasses. All it takes is the soft curve of her smile to call him over, and following her lead, he stretches out beside her on her sleeping bag.

He wonders if she's comfortable in his arms. He probably doesn't feel very human anymore, but she seems to find some pleasure in his embrace, pressing a tender kiss to his jaw. "I know we've got some time to make up for," she mumbles with a weary smile, "but unfortunately, one of us is still human."

"Trust me, doll, I am very aware." His fingers brush dark hair back from her face and pull her glasses free to set them aside.

Her eyes slip closed, and she yawns into the back of her hand. "Nice trip down memory lane," she murmurs, a smile lingering on her face. "We'll have to do it again sometime."

"You pick the place, sweetheart."

"Nicky," she laughs softly. She says it like she knows him . . . like she's a long way from home and she's missed him. It's enough to give an old synth a little hope. Doesn't seem like something he was programmed for, but there it is, aching and misused but familiar, in the metallic chasm of his chest.

Only this time, he's got the sense to stick around. He's done walking away from Nora Lacey.

Funny how some truths change. . .


End file.
